[Aktungbby]

1941:SS Robin Moor, a Hog Islander steamship that sailed under the American flag is stopped and sunk by U-69, the first type VIIC boat in the Kreigsmarine, 750 miles west of the British-controlled port of Freetown, Sierra Leone. "Although the Robin Moor was flying the flag of a neutral country, her mate was told by the U-boat crew that they had decided to "let us have it." After a brief period for the ship's crew and passengers to board her four lifeboats, the U-boat fired a torpedo at the rudder and then shelled the vacated ship at the bridge. Once the ship was scuttled beneath the waves, the submarine's crew pulled up to Captain W.E. Myers' lifeboat, left him with four tins of ersatz bread and two tins of butter, and explained that the ship had been sunk by her own crew because she was carrying supplies to Germany's enemy." nearly two weeks passed before any of her four lifeboats of survivors were discovered. As President Roosevelt would later state in a message to Congress regarding the sinking, the survivors were "accidentally discovered and rescued by friendly vessels." [wiki] The lifeboat containing the captain and 10 others was rescued on 8 June after 18 days, and taken to Brazil. The occupants of that boat presumed that the remaining crew and passengers were lost, but they later learned that the three lifeboats containing the others had been discovered by chance on 13 June, two days after the sinking, and taken to South Africa. Remarkably, all of the crew and passengers were rescued. The political ramifications edged a resolute but crafty FDR closer to the inevitable: The State Department then required Germany and Italy to close all of their consulates in the United States except for their embassies, prompting Germany to issue the same directive to the United States in return. The US also demanded damages and reparations from Germany, without success....reportedly, 70% of the vessel's cargo met German and British requirement as war contraband. THe U-69 had two emblems; one depicting the flag signal L M A "mich im Arsche lecken" and the other after a French ad: U-69 was first assigned to 7th Flotilla and the crew were instructed to paint Günther Prien's snorting bull insignia on the U-boat's conning tower. No illustration was enclosed, so U-69‍ '​s First Watch Officer, Oblt.z.See Auffermann instructed a shipyard worker to copy the head which appeared on the packaging of a popular French dairy product instead. This 'naturally proved to be a source of great amusement''. U-69's first commander Jost Metzler> published a memoir The Laughing Cow in 1954. Lord knows, I love my U boat emblems...and the stories behind them